Short Fiction Tuesday

I'd read a few short stories this past week, and some of them I enjoyed, but none were really jumping out as something I had anything to say about. So I decided to just pick one today that I hadn't read yet, and that would be the one I'd make mention of here. I've enjoyed various stories by Aliette de Bodard, so I chose her "In the Age of Iron and Ashes" in Beneath Ceaseless Skies.

I enjoyed the story. It's a dark story of gathering doom...that isn't relieved a lot in the end. Yudhyana, the protagonist, gives a good foil to the darkness of the war with his caring for the recaptured slave girl and his conviction that he's a man for peaceful times, not capable of handling the war-time duties given him. Which gives the ending even more punch... The dancing, the magic of an earlier era now lost, the various gods all add some good touches to the overall mood and feel of the story.